The battle for Baghdad

Commentary by Brig. Gen. (Ret.) David L. Grange

Coalition forces likely will not be going house to house in Baghdad. They're not going to lay siege to the city as in medieval times. The strategy will be to surround the city to keep the Iraqi military from going in or out, then to perform a series of raids, involving both armored shows of force and special operations teams.

You'll see coalition forces mounting more raids on palaces, power grids, communications sites or airfields, similar to today's attack on one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces. These raids have two purposes: They must isolate Iraqi forces within the city and attack their command and control centers, which already must communicate with low-tech messengers on motorcycles. And they must demonstrate to the civilian population that Saddam Hussein is not in control, encouraging citizens to turn on the regime. A lot of the city's Shiites and Kurds especially want change but are scared to death to take action till they know change is going to come.

Airport arrivals

Landing a C-130 transport plane in Baghdad was mostly symbolic. The airfield is not completely under control because shoulder-fired missiles still could attack planes from several miles out, and mortar and artillery fire from the city still could reach eight miles out to the airport. Eventually cargo will come into the airport and wounded personnel will be flown out from there.

Coalition forces will continue to chip away at Republican Guard units from the city limits as far as 50 miles out, and continue the "information warfare" to discredit the Iraqi authorities, whose pronouncements are growing harder to believe.

The southern front

In Basra, I would credit the British with tremendous patience in not giving in to pressure to proceed too quickly. You're not going to change 1.2 million people unless they want to change. A Shiite in Basra has been burned before by the international community and does not have access to all the information we hear. He's not going to make a total commitment till he's secure from retaliation. Coalition forces had to pour in humanitarian assistance and attack hard-core leaders like "Chemical Ali."

There is a harder clique of Fedayeen in Basra than the smaller cities, which is why fighting has been tougher there. Baghdad will be even more difficult, with its large Sunni population, but Basra is almost a model of how power and information warfare might have a swift effect on the population.

The northern front

The 4th Infantry Division is probably going to bring a larger force and heavier firepower to bear, swinging west of Baghdad and north to Tikrit, which was probably their original goal when they were going to move through Turkey. Tikrit, another Baath party stronghold, is now isolated from Baghdad, and will shortly be isolated from Mosul and Kirkuk, but fighting there will be difficult. In the north there has been excellent cooperation between special operations forces and the limited Kurdish resources without a robust armored force.

'Friendly fire'

With 800 or 1,000 sorties a day, it's amazing there have been so few friendly fire incidents, such as the Kurdish convoy fired upon this weekend. As good as these weapons are, the information on where to aim them can be wrong. I don't think this was a technical problem but a communications breakdown between the Kurdish forces that were moving and those in which the Americans were embedded.